Psychological Deficits With Mitral Commissurotomy

doi:10.1001/jama.1964.03060230095024

Psychological Deficits With Mitral Commissurotomy

Charlyne Townsend Herbert, PhD;
Herbert J. Movius, MD

Long Beach, Calif
From the psychology and surgical services of the VA Hospital, and from the Psychology Department at the University of California at Los Angeles (Dr. Herbert), and from the Department of Surgery at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, Los Angeles (Dr. Movius).

Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.

Excerpt

DURING THE last decade there has been increasing interest among professional circles in cardiac surgery. A frequently used procedure has been mitral commissurotomy to open the calcified mitral valve leading to the heart.^1,2 There have been speculations but few objective studies on psychological sequelae of the disturbed cerebral circulation which occurs in this operation.^3-6 One study has stated that there is "something inherent in the surgery of mitral stenosis," perhaps the necessary occlusion of the mitral opening at intervals during commissurotomy that produces "depression of some of the psychometric scores" obtained in tests on such patients, indicating "postoperative central nervous system damage."⁵ Reported here is an investigation of pre- and postoperative psychological test results of patients undergoing mitral commissurotomy.

Subjects.— Two groups of eight adult male inpatients (16 in all) were selected at random from each of the two most serious classes, III and IV, of